seo fish
All good things (and other analogies for SEO)
We've all heard that familiar expression, "All good things come to those who wait." Whether you're waiting for your Heinz ketchup to pour on your burger (remember those ads?), Waiting for Christmas Day to open presents, waiting for the summer holidays to be left out of school or waiting in line at the DMV … Well, maybe not the DMV. Good things come if simply allowed to enter their own time.
Under normal circumstances, that the expression is not true. You still get your ketchup if you put the knife in the bottle, dragging it out at the plate, open gifts on Christmas Eve, skip this sense the last days of school, or enter the express line at the DMV. The real lesson behind the cliché is that patience is a virtue.
For example, it is true, that good things come to those who wait, is when you are performing the search engine optimization. Unlike placing sponsored ads through Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing in which the results are almost Instant, long-term profitability of investment in SEO is considerably better than most forms of in or out of online advertising. Unfortunately, SEO does not produce instant results. Yes, patience is still a virtue.
Optimizing your site for their specific keyword phrases will get you the # 1 during the night. You will not find all keywords in the top 10 rankings in Google in just a few days, nor will you get significant traffic improvement the snap of the fingers. To use a simple analogy, SEO is like boiling water: you do not get a hard boil when turning on the burner, you have to wait for it.
The process of optimizing a site or specific pages in a site can only take weeks, and that's just the initial optimization phase. In a previous article I wrote about the making of a perfect SEO firm, highlighting all the different jobs that an SEO company should make to the process optimization. That article described only the general human resources, but not within the specific job functions required in the process of SEO, when done correctly. This is where I let that particular cat, out of the bag.
Can not way out of a paper bag
In the front of the hours of process optimization and hours of research should be conducted for each account. Everything from keyword research, research industry, competitive research, market research, and more, all need to be completed before optimization can begin. Often I wonder if research time can be reduced if we performed optimization work for another site in the same area recently. The short answer to that is "no."
Each site is constructed different, designed different, laid down different, has a unique history and targets the audience differently. All these are factors considered in the multiple levels of investigation. No two sites are the same, therefore the investigation is not the same.
Nothing to Write Home About
A good SEO actually write or rewrite your page content properly (and effectively) work in your targeted keyword phrases. A professional writer should be able to adopt recommendations for the use of SEO keywords and to incorporate existing content in a way that reads naturally (ie does not look as if you just try to insert keywords here and there the relevance of search engines) and has the ability to convert users to paying customers. This is not an easy task and must involve more time and attention.
Take It Or Leave It
Code Elimination swelling is probably the most high part of the SEO process. Sure, everyone knows about titles, meta tags, alt tags, etc and make them all search engine friendly. That is not necessarily an easy task either. Many times, eliminating page code swelling is an incredibly difficult task. Move styles and javascripts are only part of the puzzle. Many times a page has to be rebuilt almost entirely due to excess amount of junk code that was launched so that programs design were used.
Even a Broken Watch is correct twice a day
At the top of the code bloat removal process also want to get your pages to validate to professional HTML standards set by W3C. Validation is simply ensuring the correct coding elements are used and used correctly. While most validation issues are relatively small, tend to come in multitudes thorough the site. The broader issues of validation can often take substantial time and tuning to correct code.
All things being equal
Site maps, 404, redirects and robots.txt files are important to the overall construction of your site, but not necessarily have a direct impact on the real page site optimization. Site maps help both search engines and visitors quickly and easily to information that is important. A custom 404 redirect eliminates the annoying "page not found" error and lets you keep visitors on your site if somehow access a page through of a bad link. The robots.txt file is useful for communicating with the search engine spiders about content they should or should not index. This allows the engine search to focus their time on the good things and not the relevant parts of your site.
Here there is more than the eye
There are plenty of details I I made simply because not all be addressed in one article, but you can get the gist of the amount of work devoted to just the initial optimization a site. Depending on the size of the site or the number of pages being optimized above processes may take several weeks to several months to compete. Returning to our analogy of boiling water, only fill the pot, now is the time to put the pot on the stove.
Very rarely is the search engine optimization a one-time-only process, but requires a continuing effort under way to build site relevance, evaluate performance, analyze effectiveness, and adjust accordingly campaign to achieve and maintain top rankings active competitors and substantial algorithm changes.
There are plenty of fish in the sea
Link building and management is an important aspect of the total optimization campaign. Optimizing your site without considering your link campaign is like trying to drive a car without tires. You do not need big tires make the car move forward, but you have to have some type of tires on the place, unless you are towing your car into a truck. Same goes for a website, can be a great site, but links are simply not take place in the natural search results. (Just to complete the analogy, we can say that sponsored ads and marketing efforts offline are the truck.)
Linking has become more and more complex as the search engines fight link spam and try to improve the relevance. Whether you are looking one way or reciprocal links, linked articles or directory submissions, or "authority links, building links is a slow process that undergoes constant re-evaluations. A good link today may not be a good link tomorrow, not because he was never a good link but because the linking site might become irrelevant for search engines or become a search spammer, or whatever reason. Over half to two thirds of the monthly man-hours allocated to the optimization current can easily be focused specifically on the bond campaign.
Look at both sides of the coin
Unless you are directed to no more one sentence for each page of your site, will inevitably take some refinement to achieve top rankings for all phrases being targeted. An investigation keyword in the configuration process can greatly improve the rankings of top file capacity for several sentences per page, but no matter what there will always be some elements that work against each other. Setting a sentence here and one low. Adjust that phrase and another phrase drops.
Over time, a good SEO will be effective with a keywords and classified against the competition. That's half the battle. The rest is new or existing competitors amp optimization efforts to recover what was achieved and the search engines adjust their algorithms. We have all heard of sites losing rankings some adjustments, even those that have never circulated. It happens and the work of the SEO to see these things coming and adjust the site accordingly and should rankings dip, to move and bring them back into place.
Looks Bait Breath
Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what happens in the monthly optimization campaign. But all these adjustments work in time. Moreover once considered "sandboxing" and "aging delays" that are becoming a staple in the search engine algorithms.
If You're Not part of the solution, you are part of the problem
Do not expect instant results with your campaign optimization. Many SEOs require a six or twelve month contract, simply because they know they can often take a long time to show solid results for all your keywords. Expecting great results the sooner it is simply an illusion.
We all know the saying, "You never see a pot boiling." Well, actually, will have the same amount of time to boil in a pot has not been seen, but it seems more because you're staring at her. Once you hire your SEO company, do their job and leave. Do not forget to complete and check them occasionally so they know what is happening (and your SEO knows that you expect results), but little gives time for the work process.
Going to work on your site, your business and marketing efforts. While your SEO is working to make your site successful in search engines, look for other ways to achieve success to you and, to use another cliche, do not put all your eggs in one basket. Engine optimization search should not be your only hope of success.
If you've done your research and chosen the right of a successful SEO company will come, but only over time. Be willing to let the process work its course and good things will come … by boat.
About the Author
Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing (www.PolePositionMarketing.com), a search engine optimization / marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance (www.eMarketingPerformance.com) marketing blog. (ab)
